Last Summer in Louisbourg by Claire Mowat

Summary: After winning an essay writing contest, fifteen year-old Andrea is offered a chance to work at any Canada Park for the summer. She chooses to go to Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia to work at the historical Fortress of Louisbourg because she was born in the Maritimes and misses being there. Her summer job leads to new friends, a role in a movie production, and the revelation of a long held family secret.

Number of Pages: 147

Age Range: 12-13

Review: The last book in The Girl From Away trilogy, main character Andrea is now fifteen years-old and venturing out to Cape Breton Island to work for the summer at The Fortress of Louisbourg on her own.

In other books, that plot line would make the story alone, but from what I’ve gathered about the other two books in the trilogy, Andrea is pretty independent and has already been on a couple of trips without her mother and step-father. Instead, Claire Mowat mixes mystery, a little romance, movies, and a family secret to create a summer Andrea will never forget.

You don’t have to have read the previous books in the trilogy to enjoy this one because it does stand alone. I did wonder though if reading the whole trilogy would have given the last book more depth for me. Last Summer in Louisbourg can count as teen fiction because Andrea is fifteen herself, but I would recommend it to 12-13 year old or intermediate fiction readers.

Memorable Quotes:

Last night’s rain had dwindled to a mist, out of which, on the far side of the bay, rose a fortress town from another age. Andrea could not take her eyes off the hazy panorama of gleaming slate roofs, tall brick chimneys, soaring spires, and massive grey stone walls. It was hard to believe that what she was seeing was a replica of a town that had stood here on this bleak, windswept peninsula beside the Atlantic Ocean nearly three hundred years ago. It seemed like pure magic to Andrea.” – from Last Summer in Louisbourg by Claire Mowat, page 28

Last Summer in Louisbourg by Claire Mowat is published by Nimbus Publishing (2012).
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